LinkedIn offers tips on landing your ‘dream job’

When you were younger, you might have dreamed of being an astronaut or a doctor, but as you grew older your dream job may have changed a few times.

Though your ideal job probably fluctuated throughout the years, the dream to attain it may still be there.

The world's largest professional network, LinkedIn, released the results of its 'Dream Jobs' study in November.

This study set to find out what the most common childhood career aspirations were among 8,000 professionals around the globe and if they had attained their dream job.

In Australia the top job aspiration was to be an airplane or helicopter pilot; in North America being a teacher was the ideal aspiration for the majority; being a doctor, nurse or EMT rated highest in South Africa and New Zealand; and in Asia, Brazil, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates many people dreamed of becoming an engineer.

Almost one out of every three LinkedIn members surveyed (30.3 per cent) said that they currently have their childhood dream job or work in a career related to this.

Those who said they hadn't attained their childhood dream job most often cited 'As I got older, I became interested in a different career path' as the reason they didn't work in that industry.

"The dream jobs we aspire to as children are a window into our passions and talents," said LinkedIn's career expert Nicole Williams.

"Identifying and understanding those passions are key to improving our performance and enjoyment of the jobs we currently do, even if they aren't specific to the careers we dreamed of as kids."

LinkedIn suggested some ways in which people can get close to landing their dream job, with the first step being to follow your dream employers on LinkedIn.

There are over 2.6 million LinkedIn company pages and when you follow a company, you'll get updates on when jobs become available as well as other interesting insights.

It's also essential to add relevant LinkedIn skills to your profile, as you could get skipped over in the LinkedIn advanced people searches that are related to those terms.

You also have the opportunity to follow thought leaders in the field of your dream job, with original content written by big names such as Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington and Tony Robbins.